Louis, and for the present to cease hostilities. Meantime the emperor had occupied Salonica. As soon as he heard of the siege of Adrianople he at once hastened to its relief and 'pour faire tout le mal qu'il pourrait au marquis.' On the way he met the messengers from the city, who besought him to submit his case, as Boniface had consented to do, to arbitration, at the same time plainly telling him that Dandolo, Count Louis of Blois, and the other barons would not tolerate war between him and Boniface. The emperor hesitated and consulted his council. Some of the members urged that the message was an outrage and advised resistance. Violent language ('grosses paroles') was used, but the emperor, who was unwilling to risk the hostility of so strong a combination as Dandolo and Louis, gave way to the extent of stating that he would undertake not to attack Boniface until he went to Constantinople, although he would not pledge himself to refer the questions between them to arbitration. Shortly after, when a peace was patched up between them, it was under conditions which show that neither party trusted the other. Villehardouin undertook to hold Didymotica until he knew by a trusted messenger that Salonica had been handed over to Boniface.

Nor were the external differences which at once presented themselves less serious. The history of Constantinople and the Latin empire during the period between 1204 and 1260 is indeed that of a series of struggles between Baldwin and his successors on the imperial throne, on the one side, and the leaders of the Greek race who had refused to recognise the authority of the invaders, on the other.

Opposition of Greek population.The Western barons seemed to have thought that with the conquest of the capital the whole empire would fall to their lot. They were soon undeceived. In Macedonia and in Epirus Greek leaders appeared, who rallied to them all who were indisposed to accept new rulers. At Trebizond on the Black Sea, and at Nicaea, the once famous city of the Creed, the Greeks flocked from the capital and its neighbourhood, and soon there were rulers of these cities who assumed the title of emperor.